


In Dreams

by steelneena



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Nealfire exchange day!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-16
Updated: 2016-04-16
Packaged: 2018-06-02 14:19:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6569635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steelneena/pseuds/steelneena
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>But in dreams<br/>I can hear your name<br/>But in dreams<br/>We will meet again<br/>~</p><p>Emma, during her tenure as the dark one, fights off the nightmares alone, but not for long...</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Dreams

**Author's Note:**

  * For [http://oneeyecarl.tumblr.com/](/gifts?recipient=http%3A%2F%2Foneeyecarl.tumblr.com%2F).



> For the Nealfire Exchange over on tumblr!
> 
> PROMPT 2: Neal is gone, but Emma still has the dreamcatcher from him. Neal always saves her in her nightmares, he’s there even after death.
> 
> Include characters as needed to suit the story. Swanfire, obviously but no hate on Hook, please. I’d like it to actually be Neal in her dreams, not just her imagination. Neal manages to help alleviate her fears and worries even when he’s not in the same plane of existence anymore

 

Nightmares were something that  Emma had grown used to over the years. She'd never had many herself, but she'd experienced them first hand, frequently, almost once a night for a year. It had culminated in the Great Find - the Dreamcatcher. Once it graced their home in the Bug, Neal’s constant and nearly violent nightmares lessened.

 

She had refused to look at it for weeks after...after it had happened. Nothing she owned reminded her so painfully of him than the Dreamcatcher. Her necklace...she was too used to it being there, to used to it being The Reminder, that it didn't bother her so much. And she'd adapted to Henry, to how much their son looked like, and acted like his father. Once, it had pained her to even look at their son. Now it was a dull, throbbing ache, tempered with love.

 

But the Dreamcatcher was different.

 

So many years she'd been without it, and he'd kept it all along. It had been so long that it had become imbued with his essence, with his very energy. Even as untrained as she was, Emma could feel the remnant of his aura on it, beaming out his vibes for ten feet. She would have known them anywhere. It was easy for everyone else to forget how intimately they’d known each other, but Emma could never, ever push away how close they’d been, even at his end. How close she’d gotten to him; how close she’d never been able to get with anyone else  _ but  _ him. But with everything going to hell, like it usually did, she needed a piece of him near, and what better than that piece which she had so often used to comfort him, to tell him that it would be alright?

 

There had been no nightmares, until the night he died.

 

One long week she had resisted.

 

No more.

 

As Emma Swan drifted into uneasy sleep, the Dreamcatcher hung above her, pulsating. In her fretful slumber, she couldn't see, or feel it, but it was there all the same...

Emma stood on top of a snowcapped mountain, white flurries whirling so thickly in the air that visibility was nonexistent. She shivered against the onslaught, pulling her thin coat closer around her, hands tucked under her arms in effort to keep them warm. Frightened, she fought back tears. Why was she there? She couldn't remember how she'd gotten there, or what had come before. All she knew was that she was cold, and lost and alone.

 

Then came the thunderous warning and her ground let out from under her.

 

Falling, falling, falling through a haze of green power. Cackling faces she couldn't identify for longer than a split second flashed before her. A suspicious woman, a boy with an intensely disturbing and evil smirk, and others, indistinguishable, flying at her face, bombarding her in tiny bursts of black smoke and tangible hatred.  And she was still falling, silent in her abject terror, unable to react, no handholds to grab, and the spiked ground rushing up at her.

 

Emma squeezed her eyes shut. Across her face was painted her dread. She waited for the end.

Warmth enveloped her, like arms, carrying her in bridal fashion, but, afraid it was a trick, Emma daren't open her eyes, and instead pretended like Alice, It's just a dream, it's just a dream.

 

"Just because it's a dream, doesn't mean it's not real, Emma,"

 

The rich compassion of his voice reached her ears, stemming the yearning that she hadn't even known was there. Emma's eyes opened, wide, and locked to another pair.

 

"Neal!" He held her, just as she'd imagined, cradling her to his chest, and smiling down with all the warmth of the sun in his gaze. "Are you really...?" Reaching up with a single finger, Emma traced the skin of his cheek.

 

"Look around you," He stated affectionately. Doing as she was told, Emma broke her gaze away and turned to look out at her surroundings.

 

"Portland!" She exclaimed, looking back to him. "But how did-"

 

"Dreams are what you make them. We had Portland together, so subconsciously, you've created Portland around us. You associate me with Portland,"

 

"But I thought you said this dream was real," Emma countered seriously, suddenly more aware of her position, though she didn't indicate her sudden discomfort.

 

"Dreams and reality are what you make them," Mischievously, Neal's eyes twinkled. Emma smacked his upper arm with mild force.

 

"Since when did you become so cryptic Mr. I'm-like-a-Beat-I'm-Forthright-in-my-metaphors? If this dream is real, then I can make it what I want?"

 

"Perhaps," He deliberated, giving in, "A better description would be that dreams and reality are what you make them, and even though Dreams can be real, not every aspect is. Dreams are the reflection of your reality, Emma. You make your reality, and your Dreams are a result of its influence,"

 

"So you're not really here at all then, are you?" Her heart sank like a rock in her chest, and without warning, Neal set her down. Emma's question hung in the air.

 

"Touch the Bug," He directed. 

 

"What Bug?" Quizzical, Emma gestured wildly around her. "The car isn't...here," As she'd spun, Emma had spotted the beloved yellow VW, as if it had always been there. Laying a hand on it, she found it...not quite solid?  "How did-"

 

"Now touch me,"

 

Emma rounded on him, ready to yell until Neal spoke plainly, but the look he wore enticed her to comply. Tentatively, Emma put out a hand. His chest below her touch was firm and warm and she could feel the strong, rhythmic beating of his pulse. Shocked, she pulled away.

 

"I am not a dream," The words were plainly spoken, almost unemotional, but he put out a hand, ghosting his fingers across her cheek nearly allowing contact. The air between them felt plaintive, Emma a maelstrom of emotions, but Neal let his hand fall away.

 

"Then why do you feel like one?" She asked.

 

Everything welled up then, everything Emma had tried to push back, to push away. Everything she'd sought to cut out of her heart came pouring forth in a tidal wave of force.

 

"I am not a dream," Repeated Neal simply. "I never have been, and I never will be,"

 

Emma chanced a look around the landscape. Portland blurred around them, but, glancing back at Neal, she found his form still solid, with clear, defined edges. It was as if the grey light surrounding them brightened around his form, just slightly.

 

"How can you be real? How can all this be a dream, if you're real? Why are you here?" Questions piled on top of one another quickly became accusations and within the few moments it had taken her to speak the words, Emma found herself standing scant inches from him, so close, she could feel his breath disturb a stray strand of hair across her forehead.

 

"I don't know the how, but I can tell you the why," Neal turned away from her, and Emma could see that Portland was gone, faded into nothing with her acceptance.

 

She waited. They looked out at the grey void in silence.

 

"Why?" She questioned once more.

 

"You called. You called for me, Emma. I came," 

 

She reached for him, but drew back.

 

"I came when you called. I will always come for you when you call," The tenderness she found in his words was more than she could handle.

 

"Why?" Never had Emma spoken meekly in her life, but in that moment, every confidence she'd ever held, or postured, dissipated.

 

"It's my vocation...and my penance, I guess. But it isn't much penance when I'm happy to do it, when it's no hardship to me," Neal hung his head briefly, before looking up and holding her gaze, a fierce light in his eyes. "I left you once. I'll never leave you when you need me again,"

 

Emma had been about to reply, but she woke, frantic and grasping at thin air, only the hazy memory of his arm solid beneath her fingers remaining, the only reminder of him the Dreamcatcher at her bedside.

 

~

 

Emma never remembered her dreams, but she knew that she had them, frequently. As the Dark One, she'd tried to banish sleep from her repertoire of 'things required to survive' but she hadn't quite been able to master the task of never sleeping. Occasionally, she succumbed. 

 

In her dreams, Emma found, she was normal, but a horde of tar-black evils haunted the dreamscape. On this particular occasion, a scale-skinned sorceress pulled at her hair, and scratched across her chest with sharp fingernails, hissing insidious things in her ear and taunting her mercilessly. Nimue was cloaked in black smoke that choked down Emma's throat, making her cough until she could feel the slick warmth of blood in her throat.

 

It was never ending torture, every time she slept. No wonder Rumplestiltskin had decided to stop sleeping. It wasn’t worth it anymore.

 

Nimue held her by the hair, tilting her head back, face inches from Emma's as she spoke, when the evil beings eyes widened, almost comically, and a light burst somewhere from behind them. The Enchantress dissipated into the horrible black smoke and drifted away, sparking in the white light. Emma, suddenly released, fell to her knees.

 

The light from behind her grew brighter.

 

Blood dripped from Emma's mouth, and she doubled over, bracing herself against the ground with both palms. The light gripped her chin, and tilted it upwards minutely. In response, the bleeding stopped, and Emma felt her body recovering from it's hurts.

 

"You called,"

 

Emma's eyes darted upwards. There crouching above her, was Neal, smiling eyes sending loving compassion in tangible waves over her.

 

"But I'm-" The ugliness in her soul was repelled by his presence, and Emma wanted to shrink away, but his hands migrated to her shoulders, holding her gently steady before pressing a tender, lingering kiss to her forehead.

 

"You are Emma Swan. My One True Love. And I came when you called. And I will  _ always  _ believe in you,”

 

When the Dark One awoke that morning, she was slumped over her workbench in her shed, the Dreamcatcher beside her.

 

This time, the memory of the dream wasn't so far from her mind. Instead, it lingered. It was, she conjectured, the influence of the curse in conjunction with the magic of the Dreamcatcher. There was something inordinately special about the original, beaten old thing which they'd stolen from the room in Portland, something which imbued it with extra power that it hadn't had before. Or maybe it had, but there had been no outlet for it prior to her curse, or she wasn't powerful enough to be aware of its subtle majesty or…

 

_ Focussss _ . Nimue hissed at her.

 

She took the battered thing in her hand, looking at it intently through a weave of her own magic.

A single, white light glowed at the centre of the webbing, tied on like an extra string.

 

Emma fought the urge to wrap it in her magic and pull.

 

Instead, she prodded and felt-

 

A pulse. Beating.

 

So it  _ was  _ the Dreamcatcher which instigated Neal's ability to reach her in her dreams. His soul, his essence was tied to it so strongly, even her most forceful tug could not dislodge it from the place where it was fastened.

 

Insidious at the back of her brain, Nimue was muttering dark things, but Emma forcibly pushed her away, clinging to Neal’s warmth. Maybe, she could beat this. Just maybe.

 

If Neal still believed in her, maybe Emma could find the fortitude to persevere. She steeled her heart.

For once, she heard words in her mind that didn’t belong to a dark presence. Instead, the whisper encouraged her, and she repeated it’s words.

  
_ Tallahassee, Baby. You’re almost there. _


End file.
